Shef backed away, further up the sandbank, out of easy javelin range, wondering what came now. He was weaponless and alone. A cry and the oars stopped their beat, remained jutting out from the rowlocks. A man stepped over the side, on to one, walked down it in sailor’s goatskin shoes, jumped the last feet on to the hard sand. A young man, Shef saw watching warily a dozen yards away. But tall and strong, with a gold bracelet round one biceps.
A rush of air overhead, and another. Crossbow bolts from the Norfolk, trying to help. But a long carry from stranded ship to channel and then across the channel, and the bulk of the Ormr in the way. Shef backed further as the young man drew his sword. Three more men stepped on to oars and made their way towards him. Shef, sparing just one glance from his nearest enemy, recognized all three: Halvdan Ragnarsson, who had umpired his holmgang at York, Ubbi Ragnarsson the grizzled, and between them Sigurth, who had taken Shef’s eye at Bedricsward. As if remembering, Shef’s empty eye-socket suddenly gushed salt water. The Ragnarssons held axe, sword and spear. All three wore mail. The young man closest to Shef did not.
Shef turned and began to run down the sandbank. It took him away from the Norfolk, but that could not be helped. If he stayed where he was, they would kill him, if he ran across the bank he would be floundering in water again in a few strides. Mistake, he realized an instant later. He was running the same way as the Ormr was facing, and she was keeping easy pace with him on his right, shielding his pursuers from the crossbows and with men ready for a shot with bow or javelin. He veered to the left, hearing feet pounding on the sand behind him. The bank came to an end. He hurled himself straight out into the water in a flat dive, took three, four, powerful strokes, felt the sand under his belly again and scrambled to his feet once more.
A dozen strides and he risked a look over his shoulder. The young man had hesitated on the edge of the water, but was splashing through it, no more than waist-deep. The Ragnarssons were behind, older men and weighed down by their mail, but spreading out to cross the little channel yards apart and cut off any break back. In front of him, and on both sides, there lay nothing but a confusion of rounded banks, with pools and shallow runnels draining to the main channels. Every now and then one of the runnels was a deep one. That was where they might catch him, still swimming as Sigurth aimed his spear or the young man caught his heel. But if he got enough of a lead he could swim one of them and get away. Men in mail would not be anxious to try a deep channel, and would lose sight of him if they did.
Shef turned as the young man reached shore, and ran again. Ran just a little slower than his best, swerving and glancing over his shoulder every dozen yards, as if terrified. Fifty yards and splash through a shallow pool. Fifty more and round a steeper bank. The Ormr a furlong away now and powerless to intervene, the Ragnarssons spread out and calling to each other to keep him in sight. The tall young man’s panting easy to hear as he closed the gap, raising his sword every few strides as if hoping to strike. Vikings were poor runners, Shef remembered grimly.
He swerved through another knee-deep rivulet, leapt up the other side on to firm sand, and swung round.
The young man paused in the water, then grinned exultantly and leapt forward, sword up for a forehand cut. Shef sprang inside the blow, both hands grabbing the right wrist, and backheeled his enemy’s legs from under him. Both went down with a thud on the sand, the sword bouncing away.
No time to grab it, and too risky to grapple. All the Viking had to do was hold him till the Ragnarssons got there. Shef stepped back, arms spread in the wrestler’s stance. The young man faced him, still panting, still grinning.